um HELLO

so wtf is the deal just when i start posting again yall slows down. sucka butt! yesterday, while watching cool hand luke (paul newman is so classically beautiful, i want to stare into his eyes all day. i've never seen a paul newman movie before. my boss started a dvd club here at work) we saw the puppies of mysterious puppycam (why? where? who? can i have one?) burrow under their bedding, being all unbearably cute. i spend a not insignificant portion of my day watching those lil tykes romp about

i was also catching up on episodes of my favorite game show, never mind the buzzcocks. if you've never seen it, you should (episodes are on youtube) - it's a british celeb-pop quiz show that is more the view than jeopardy. hosted by simon amstell, a terrificly sarcastic basard (you might remember him from popworld, where he made britney spears cry during an interview), the show frequently has top musicians and actors on who basically spend the entire show making fun of themselves, each other, and amy winehouse. oh yeah, she was also on the show too, being fantastically drunk.

one part of the show, called 'identity parade', has each team try to spot a musical artist out of a line-up of five people. it's embarassingly rude (and hilarious), because it's sorta like 'haha, you once were a famous musician now no one even remembers you'. the worst is when you actually do remember the artist. this last season had the singer from bbmak on. wow. i remember bbmak (back here babyyyy ...), and i just felt terrible. this guy was once on TRL, now he's in a line-up of losers, while current, successful musicians and actors are laughing and pointing at him.

i hope i'm never like that guy. id rather be dead than a has-been.

albatross albatross albatross

ok so yea i havent posted on thousands in about forever. whats changed since then? well, we now have a real president, its almost turkey day, and i got a day job. duck, duck, GOOSE THAT IS NOT IN ANY WAY COOL OR AWESOME.

i also made my dj debut this weekend at a place called the mug lounge, on the lower east side of manhattan (13th and ave a). we randomly scoped this place out a few weeks back before seeing mstrkrft, and the bartender there happened to mention they just fired their friday night dj. wasting no time to hop on board, i laid down a fresh set of tunes for them, and they liked what they heard (to be fair, they asked me to play house, trance, european house, european trance, reggae, and old school hip-hop. or something like that. they have no idea what they want). i also met renee, who is 33 years old and a 32B bra size. she tried to request songs, but ended up just pointing at her breasts the entire night.

ive been trying to mix more disco and house, and have come to the conclusion that "doom house disco" is my new favorite genre. it doesnt exist. but it will.

heres some tunes of what comes close. first we have some doom, from a little-known dj in canada called hemingway. its gritty, its dark, and makes me think of blade runner, if it was directed by david lynch. then we skip the house and go straight to some disco, with a remix of sneaky sound system by breakbot. last, i bring you some house. HOUSE OF JEALOUS LOVERS that is, with a funked up high energy party pleaser that will have people to their feet in no time. tenderlions does the remix, and brings their upbeat sound to a classic.

hemingway - machine

sneaky sound system - when we were young (breakbot remix)

the rapture - house of jealous lovers (tenderlions remix)

now i have to go to a "meeting" about "market research" on the "7th floor". killself.

Albums of the Year (Heartfelt and Sincere Opinions)

This list was compiled in like 10 minutes.

Either there will be disagreement (no loss, probable gain), or someone will chime in with something better (super gain). I'm especially interested in the 1990-2003 years, because those will have solidified and proven some enduring value.

Guaranteed net positive gain!

2008 - The Dodos "Visiter"
2008 - Fleet Foxes "Fleet Foxes"
2007 - Animal Collective "Strawberry Jam"
2007 - Andrew Bird "Armchair Apocrypha"
2006 - Sonic Youth "Rather Ripped"
2006 - Sunset Rubdown "Shut Up I Am Dreaming"
2005 - Wolf Parade "Apologies to the Queen Mary"
2005 - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah "Clap Your Hands Say Yeah"
2004 - Arcade Fire "Funeral"
2003 - Motion City Soundtrack "I Am The Movie"
2002 - Wilco "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot"
2000 - Modest Mouse "The Moon & Antarctica"
1998 - Neutral Milk Hotel "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea"

Garfield Minus Garfield

Many of us are familiar with Garfield Minus Garfield. For those who aren't familiar, you're in for lasagna!

Here's an interview with the author posted on The New Yorker's website.

Does an internet-based comic creation program exist? Can anyone advise on the best way to create comics intended to be displayed online? I miss making comics. Man I'm sure you all miss me making comics. They were so GOOD. I tried to get the newspaper to take them off their website, but they said something like, "No, sorry, just because you now think your work sucked and don't want it to be linked to your name, doesn't mean we will take it down for you." I swear some future would-be employer will reject me for mental health reasons after googling my name and stumbling on those gems.

HayK, do you have a comic blog yet?
Congrats to Leon Leon Leon for locking up a weekly DJ gig!

improve your life by 100000000%

Live puppy cam, you make me want to be a better person. I have no idea who you belong to...which is odd, but as far as I'm concerned, all these puppies live inside my computer for the sole purpose of keeping me entertained. Romp! Romp about! *stiffled giggles* oh this feels wrong.

Spit Pee Soup

Normal human body stuff rarely jostles me. I am more likely to help a bleeding person than to turn away; grossness doesn't override what a situation may even lightly require. For example, when I use the loo and the dude posted up in the urinal next to me very clearly ate some asparagus beforehand, and another dude's rapidly re-puckering anus is spewing pebbles like a warrior Flintstone's [insert-generic-dinosaur] gatling gun might have done, I'm more likely to to stifle a laugh than to wrinkle my nose.

However! Just a few minutes ago I leaned over to spit while I was peeing. It wasn't a trajectory spit; it was more like an extended drip. Just as the bottom-most part of the drip entered my pee stream, and their vectors combined to redirect the saliva glob away from my body, the middle of the saliva glob did that silly-putty thing* and my just-pursed lips received a small "splat" of spit. I couldn't help but feel that I had kissed pee.

*The weight of the lower "bulb" of the saliva glob pulled downward and stretched out the glob until the center became too thin to support the "bulb" and broke, after which the lower half of the glob shot downward along the combined vector of the orignial extended drip (via gravity) and the pee stream (I guess about 20 or 30 degrees below horizontal), and the upper half responded elastically, vertically.

We all have heros.

Way to go Madonna. Only your terrifying quads could have the insane ability to make Britney Spears seem relatively normal, sane, and maybe even in possession of a little thing called class in comparison. Excuse me while I clean up the vomit on my keyboard. Looking at the quintessential pop bad girl from way back when, and the grossly infamous good girl mouseketeer gone rotten (I'm not even bringing Lindsey Lohan into this), I fear for the likes of Hillary Duff and Miley Cyrus in the ongoing attempts to "mature" their image. In fact Duff is already well along that path going at her B-side celeb rate, but her new video still really weirded me out...I don't like Lizzie Mcguire telling me to touch her. I really really don't.



I'm sorry. I really am. You...you had to know how bad it was. Please don't hate me.

hell hath no nothing.

I just made a huge, huge, un-overstatably huge realization about posting on this bull-hog: I really have no reason to worry about timeliness; in fact I have, more or less, six times less reason to worry about it than anyone else. (except Dan. Fuck you, Dan.) Seriously: I could think something in one moment, and then not do anything for the next six hours' worth of moments, and it would all be the same to our dear readers (us) in North america. (God damn it Dan, Fuck off.)That's the thing - there is no fury in a blog scorned; only in the ego of the blogger.

You see, I live in France. GMT+1 while all you folks (again, Fuck you Dan) are plodding along in GMT-5. Ew.

My purported raison d'etre on this old family farm was "an american in Paris". But the thing is: I don't really even live in Paris. I live just outside Paris in a charming slice of the banlieue known as Noisy-le-Sec. The translation has something to do with nut trees and dryness - I'll get back to you. So I feel a bit guilty/dishonest about leaning too heavily on that role. But lacking any other discernible expertise, or at least any that outshines the estimable skills of my/our/your co-bloggers, I'll take whatever pigeonhole I can get for the moment.

So without straying too far afield, my opening anecdote is this (seriously, Fuck-you-Dan):

If it weren't for my incorrigible instincts towards thrift and self-importance, I would have no "international reaction" to share with the world. (I was asleep at 5:00am when my mom called me to tell me Ohio had flipped - the closest I got to your whooping and street dancing was an unexpectedly smooth cnn.com feed of the speech from Grant Park.) Luckily, in the weeks preceding the election, I happened to be badgering the press relations manager of a certain French music magazine for press passes to their ridiculo-stacked festival this coming week, and on November fifth, her eventual (positive!) reply went something like this:

"Bonjour John,

First off, congratulations! It is a true joy and comfort in the world today! We escaped Sarah Palin! The only problem is that in France, we've still got Sarkozy..."

Lacking an Obama shirt or button or even a flag pin, I was hoping people would just kindof recognize I was American and rush up to shake my hand and thank me the next morning...but no dice. I absentee-voted for Obama, and all I got was these crummy press passes.

um. Dear Joaquin Phoenix, we did that first.

The Hipsters Are Getting Restless

So Indiana just got called for Obama... which will more than likely be followed by North Carolina and Missouri!? DOES TEH WINNINGS EVER STOP!? NO I DO NOT TINK SO... 4 YEARS OF WIN.

Like many other parts of the world, people convened on the streets of Brooklyn last night to celebrate the obamavictory. Shedding the practiced veils of apathetic-cool, the hip-ass kids took to the streets. Tight jeans, sunglasses at night, and cans of PBR spilled onto Bedford Ave in Williamsburg in a druken, freedom-loving orgy of previously burried patriotism.

Today in the blogosphere revelers whined about getting pushed, shoved, and in some cases even kicked by police who were called to relieve street congestion and kill fun. The NYPD issued a response in the New York Times claiming back injuries and beer-bottle-to-noggin-contact by fault of the kids (who built this election on rock 'n roll and viral videos).

As I wasn't there, but rather a few blocks away curled up in a blanket, I can't definitively say which side is the mcwhiney pants who had to take a ride in the waaahmbulance. But I am excited at the prospect that in this political arc we're riding, there is a distinct possibility that there will be a resurgence of dancing in the street.

International Reaction

I'm glad that the election is over and done with, and personally, I'm pleased with the result. I'm especially happy looking at the map and seeing that there were a bunch of "red states" that voted for Obama. For the record, I voted in New Hampshire, which pretty much saw a Democrat sweep and ousted Sununu. Unfortunately, I did not get enough write in votes to become the new Sheriff in my county, but there's always the next election.

I'm still a bit weirded out by the fact that CNN got to declare the winner before all the votes were counted, but that's besides the point.

The point is that I will act as a very lazy foreign correspondent, and report on the reaction in my immediate surroundings: the editorial office of a luxury goods magazine. The general mood is ignorance.

Says one co-worker, "Yay! The one you liked won. Did he win by a lot?"
Me: "Yeah, it looks like it."
Her: "Good." She then goes back to work.

Then, a conversation between two people who seem to have forgotten that they work with a real live American:
"Oh, it looks like Obama won the election."
"I don't like Black people."
"Then who did you want to win?"
"I just don't like black people."
"Well you know that Obama's only half black, and he's much better than his opponent [paraphrase]."
"Ungh."

So there you have it. China's opinion on America's politics is a mix of apathy, ignorance, racism, and crazy liberals with valid opinions. Sounds a lot like home.

Election Day Article

"A Date With Scarcity" by David Brooks

I really liked this article. I heard David Broder speak in Madison a month or so ago at a lecture series titled "Getting to Purple" hosted by the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters*. In his lecture, Broder echoed a few of his (i.e. Brooks') points, primarily his characterization of the Baby Boomers:

"The baby boomers, who entered adulthood promising a lifetime of activism, have been a politically undistinguished generation. They produced two presidents, neither of whom lived up to his potential. They remained consumed by the culture war that divided their generation."

The points in the article that stood out to me:

1) "...today is not only a pivot, but a confluence of pivots." (Referencing the end of an economic era, a generational era, and likely a political era)

2) "We’re probably entering a period, in other words, in which smart young liberals meet a stone-cold scarcity that they do not seem to recognize or have a plan for."

Happy Voting!


*some of you may have met its Executive Director this summer, tehe